Friday, February 20, 2009

Google (& other) Maps Friday Fun

Atlantis Found on Google MapsBritish tabloid The Sun claim that Atlantis has been found on Google Maps. From the screenshot above you can see what does actually look like a city grid in the ocean off the Canary Islands. The grid was spotted by aeronautical engineer Bernie Bamford as he browsed through Google Ocean.

Stefan at Ogle Earth has kind of spoilt the fun however by explaining that it is "merely a grid of higher resolution sounding data amid a lower-resolution dataset, taken from a ship surveying the area. " Stefan says that "one phone-call to a serious marine scientist would have sufficed to pour cold water on this story. " Which is probably why the phone call was never made.

UpdateWhilst Stefan's explanation may have been a little more boring than the Atlantis theory it has been confirmed. A Google spokeswoman confirmed this afternoon that the lines were the result of the sonar as boats mapped the ocean floor.

"It's true that many amazing discoveries have been made in Google Earth including a pristine forest in Mozambique that is home to previously unknown species and the remains of an Ancient Roman villa.

"In this case, however, what users are seeing is an artefact of the data collection process. Bathymetric (or sea floor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor.

"The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data. The fact that there are blank spots between each of these lines is a sign of how little we really know about the world's oceans."

Goon CityI've always had a fondness for pixel art. Over the years there have been a number of pixel art cities on the internet that have grown as users build and add their own blocks. I think this is the first pixel art city to use Google Maps as an interface to view the art work.

VidteqGoogle Maps has a great option to view driving directions in Street View. Indian online mapping site Vidteq have gone one better - they provide video with their driving directions.

After you have entered your start and end destination Vidteq provides the driving directions and also provides a video of the route. As the video plays the position is continually updated on the map and in the written driving directions. On the video local points of interest are indicated as are all the side roads as they are passed.